BLUES FOR ROBERT BLY AND HONEYBOY EDWARDS

 

Robert Bly and Honeyboy Edwards would have

understood each other well, I think.

When I saw Honeyboy, already in his 90s

by then, small and sinewy, the bones of his face

shining through, his skin polished to

an elegant sheen that only comes with age,

he was playing to a small lecture hall

at the university, and when called back

for an encore, proceeded to play the same tune

he had played two songs in. He must have

known hundreds of songs by then, dating back

to the beginning of this American century,

but he wanted us, for whatever reason, to hear

that one again -- or he was simply playing it

for his own amusement, the particular joy and beauty

of doing whatever you damn well please,

another gift granted only to those who endure.

It reminded me of Bly, reading the same line

of poetry over again, pausing, gazing up

to see if it had resonated with those in attendance.

This, too, is the blues after all -- repeating

the refrain one has just sung, letting it linger,

roll off the tongue once more, in no hurry

for the resolution that may or may not come.

There is no end to this kind of song.

When a great singer says, "Take it from the top,"

what they mean is, "Go back all the way."

SMOKING IN THE MOVIES

 

The legendary smokers up on the big screens

have all but vanished from our lives,

which I suppose is just as well, there being

precious little glamor in its end result.

But there was a time, not so long ago, that

we believed in that nameless hero, strong and silent,

smoking while gazing out upon the plains, far

from everywhere, and the villain, killing simply for

whimsy and fame, always one step ahead.

We believed in the femme fatale blowing smoke

rings that floated off like ill-shapen hearts,

and the hapless men falling over themselves

to offer a light to the blonde bombshell.

We followed the descent of the good girl

gone bad, the private thoughts of the lonely P.I.,

lighting up as he walked on, fading from view.

We winced at the callous boss and his wet stogie,

sighed in the obligatory afterglow of a motel room;

we fell in love with the passing stranger,

even when we knew better, the ingenue gazing

across a smoke-filled room, smoke like a veil

between illusion and the all-too-real.

But we no longer believe. We are, it seems,

wizened, streamlined, our words, like the thoughts

that lent them, reaching upward in wafer-thin

knots, weighing no more than air.

MISUNDERSTANDING THE LYRIC

 

In a few years' time, no one will remember

the popular songs you once butchered the lyrics to

in high school and beyond, so earnest in

your questioning and pronouncements,

so assured in your leather-jacketed wisdom,

singing them, with the others,

hopelessly off-key for good measure.

But then, maybe "negative two plus three"

was a clever way of denoting

the very aloneness of one,

and "guard your angels" sage advice;

maybe "take the back right turn"

were clear directions to a club where

none of you got old; and that brown-eyed girl

with sunburned legs, the one you kissed

and whispered soft lies to, never got cancer,

nor buried a son at seventeen.

So much begins and ends this way --

two strong voices speaking words in the wrong order,

or into the wrong ear, simple, melodic,

and ultimately nonsensical. So much hinges

on the misheard and unspoken.

Back then, you were certain there was

a difference between one desire and another;

back then, you were certain that

every song was somehow a love song.

And, in this, you were right.

MY MOTHER'S GUITAR

 

My mother's guitar, silent now these

past few years, rests in a corner of the room,

behind that old worn chair, each weary,

each leaning in their separate directions.

I remember clearly the first songs

it offered up: Froggy Went A-Courtin,

Blowin' in the Wind, The Wayfaring Stranger,

remember, too, the warm earthen smell

inside its Bible-black case, the ghost image

of its six strings in that gold plush lining,

long, thin roads disappearing into themselves;

I can see the wooden cathedral hidden

within the sound hole, small sparks

of angled light drifting in and out of view.

The hands that made those chords ring have

flown like birds, far away, hands gone

arthritic, fingers alternately tingling and numb.

But I can still feel the fine ridges wrapped

around each string, how the smallest touch

sounded like a secret being whispered,

a kind of conjuring with no need for words.

It rests here now, between journeys, exhaling

nearly audibly, holds its songs closely,

forever patient in its memories, its history,

its knowing, not forgetting the breath

and blood that rose to meet it,

not letting go of any of it. Not just yet.

USED RECORD STORE

 

You can smell the basements of long ago

here within these cardboard sleeves,

slender spines creased and breaking apart,

can almost feel the dampness seeping through

the cold cinder blocks, stale cigarette smoke

and voices turned suddenly into ghosts.

You can hold the shroud of another world

half-awake, waiting to be rediscovered,

can wander aimlessly the long, narrow aisles,

the way you did when you were still a kid,

hungry for any sign of life to find you.

You thought those songs would last forever,

the way summer did in every chorus,

repeating endlessly into a silence not quite.

You thought that girl who taught you

to kiss would stay just a moment longer.

the sound of her laughter like the incantation

of something just beyond your reach.

You are still searching, thumbing the racks

for something you may have missed,

still looking and listening for a message

that has taken so long to find you.

HAUNTED HOUSE

 

Throughout the sweltering day at the fair,

strolling the miles of sticky, littered sidewalks,

air thick with the smell of August sweat,

beer, and sugar spun a hundred different ways,

my young daughter pleads repeatedly

to enter the dark gates of the haunted house.

She is drawn by the canned siren screams

piped through speakers perched on either side

of the cemetery's artificial grass, entranced

by the cool, gray tombstones hovering

above a shifting sea of mist, the thin limbs

of skeletons reaching up from below.

She wants nothing more than to be scared

out of her flesh, laughing all the while.

Each time we pass I must remind her that

the spooky castle, as she calls it, is meant only

for bigger kids, and each time I am met

with an exaggerated sigh of disappointment.

I do not speak of my own quiet fears,

the worst ones that eventually came true

or were erased by others more immediate,

ones that settled in like unwelcome squatters,

nudging one another to make room;

nor do I mention every terror that I hold

on her behalf, ones I cannot yet see, but sense

feeding on shadow, gathering strength.

One day she will turn away from my warnings.

One day I will have to let go just enough,

let the devils dance in their costumes

of flesh, and every mad beast around her roar;

one day I must trust the light within her

to repel every ghost yet to come.

TUNNEL OF LOVE

 

Were we so easily amused a mere hundred years ago? Was the achingly slow motion of these tiny painted boats crawling through the water a thrill worth paying for, while we sweated through our starched, buttoned shirts and summer wool, hands folded like sleeping birds in our laps? Was it somehow old, even when it was new, creaking as though every motion would be its last, the thinnest shafts of light breaking through its walls? No, you assure me, It's meant to be this slow, so slow that you hardly realize you're moving. It's meant to go nowhere, letting you out right where you came in. Look around. There's a reason it has the longest lines of anything else out here.